Nobody wants to fight during a game; conflicts are merely to show toughness, and clashes are often about saving face... In such situations, the face issue might escalate to an actual brawl due to the atmosphere and adrenaline; usually, a referee steps in to separate them, or teammates pull them apart.
Like now, O'Neal and Moning were just pushing too hard during their positioning battle, neither side giving way, but not to the point of fighting. Zhang Hao came up and used his iron elbows to forcefully separate the two, and they didn't continue.
At this moment, the referee blew the whistle. They both thought it was a technical foul on them, but to their surprise, Zhang Hao received the technical foul!
Regardless of anything else, seeing Zhang Hao's wide-eyed disbelief was quite entertaining for the two super centers from the class of '92. Such expressions from Zhang Hao were rare!
